Ninja DPS Output(A possible Fix)

[Shurrikhan]

Virtually every job has damage windows into which to cram "anything and everything" and without TA that'd just turn into everyone else's 15 seconds buffs every other minute. Ninja will never not exploit damage windows to the best of its ability; every job is obliged to.

If you want TA to be a less invasive factor, that's just a matter of reducing NIN's ability to bank for and thereby exploit any and all raid damage windows. Such would be more helped by having a greater portion of CDs that would rarely sync to multipliers of 60, reverting Kassatsu to not give a free (non-charge-consuming) cast, or even by taking out our second charge of Ninjutsu than by removing TA.

[Satarn]

If you want TA to be a less invasive factor, that's just a matter of reducing NIN's ability to bank for and thereby exploit any and all raid damage windows. Such would be more helped by having a greater portion of CDs that would rarely sync to multipliers of 60, reverting Kassatsu to not give a free (non-charge-consuming) cast, or even by taking out our second charge of Ninjutsu than by removing TA.

This tbh, but it will not happen. SE has been deliberately aligning things more and more and killing any drifting possible since 5.0. I personally hate this direction, because it makes things more boring, but it is the direction we're going in.

5.0 NIN was quite the outlier, still retaining a very varied rotation and some (accidentally) big-brain optimization with Meisui, but got completely streamlined in the 5.1 rework. Had to hammer in that last remaining nail I guess.

[Shurrikhan]

This tbh, but it will not happen. SE has been deliberately aligning things more and more and killing any drifting possible since 5.0. I personally hate this direction, because it makes things more boring, but it is the direction we're going in.

5.0 NIN was quite the outlier, still retaining a very varied rotation and some (accidentally) big-brain optimization with Meisui, but got completely streamlined in the 5.1 rework. Had to hammer in that last remaining nail I guess.

Tbf, outside of boss jumps, the only big drift concern is, itself, TA, but so long as Ninjutsu continues to trigger its cooldown upon starting into the mudra sequence, instead of on release (as per the earlier design), and Suiton has a long prep period, drift remains basically a non-issue.

With both Kassatsu not giving a free charge and Ninjutsu having only one Charge, you'd have one fewer NJ cast per minute, of course, but the larger effect is simply that rather than the majority of Ninjutsu casts falling into TA, Ninjutsu casts under TA become basically proportionate to time spent under TA (well, 1 in 3 non-free casts, rather than 2 in 3).

There's also just the further matter of Ninjutsu's apparent potency -- as in, what the player perceives, more so than what they amount to, as portion of total damage, over time. When a given tool itself is overwhelming strong compared to typical actions, they overshadow those, diminishing the excitement that'd come from synergies (even such modest ones as manipulating the timing of this or that to get in one more strong GCD / one fewer weak GCD within a damage window). When Fuma Shuriken was an (admittedly still slightly undertuned) option for purposes of noticeably saving uptime (and especially when other timers like Dancing Blade, Mutilate, and Shadow Fang still played a part in anchoring play and changing the relative costs of uptime), Ninjutsu didn't so greatly push the normal combos out of interest. Equally notable, it also provided a soft manipulator against drift.

All in all, it's a shame how many "QoL" changes have managed to "solve" a given issue only by reducing agency and thereby creating new issues or constraints of their own. Reduced ping penalty on mudras, for instance, needed only the HW Empyreal Arrow treatment -- properly queueable weaponskills that would incur but not respect the global cooldown as triggered by other skills, with animation locks significantly shorter than their GCD periods. That'd have still allowed for the same protection against ping-based upside cost while moving all players nearer to the way NIN flowed for low-ping players before, rather than forcing all NIN to play like a 250-ping player over the course of their mudras and would not have deemphasized weaponskills nor pushed out other rotational elements.

[Shurrikhan]

So long as jobs are balanced around 8-man content, portioning a job even more towards rDPS is really just nerfing its solo / light party potential. NIN has low enough aDPS relative to rDPS as is. We're not Bards. We don't need to be even more gutless when alone.

I'd rather just first buff potencies over what level spans it's most behind and then buff Raijuu potency for what level cap difference remains.

NIN should be a top-rDPS job (not referring to having the most support as some seem to mistake rDPS for of late, but simply personal damage dealt + bonus damage given to party - bonus damage received from party). It's both one of the busiest jobs and has literally no utility, at this point, not already accounted for in said rDPS.

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Some related notes:

• I don't think the old Raijuu combo was a problem, but at my low ping, the "self-stun" of Forked Raijuu was under a quarter-second so long as I was already at the edge of the enemy's hitbox or nearer, so take that with a grain of salt.
  In terms of flow and flair, I preferred having that combo over the single-GCD Raijuu now. I just would have preferred a slight bit more flexibility on them, such as by decreasing Forked Raijuu Ready's duration to 5 seconds (and 5s of Fleeting Raijuu Ready thereafter) but not having the proc be removed by other actions (nor, obviously, to break any other combo chains, etc.).
• I don't want to see Hide usable in combat if it keeps its CD refreshes. We already do some 5 Ninjutsu practically back-to-back every other minute. Added an extra two Mudra into each odd-minute window, opposite TCJ, would just make Ninjutsu feel beyond spammy. Nor do I want to see Hide as an alternative to trick attack such that we can do 3 gainful Suiton per minute (TA, Meisui, and Hide for 2 free Ninjutsu casts thereafter).
• I would want to see further rotational variance, such as by returning Shadowfang (as a rotational combo finisher, not a CD) to the mix.

[Kolsykol]

Snip

I like the idea of rDPS, imo it feels good to buff the party and debuffs the boss it makes it feel more directly impactful and meaningful to me.
But yeah the issue is too that people need to actually take advantage of it too, if you do your thing and the party isn't taking advantage of it then it essentially makes your performance worse too.

This is why I've suggested before to give Trick Attack a higher damage buff to the NIN, so keep it at 5% or so for the party but make it higher for the NIN personally.
I actually do like Trick Attack and I don't want it to go away, my personal preference tho would be to redesign it sorta like Cloak of Shadows or whatever it's called in WoW where you basically enter '' sneaky mode '' and can do more powerful attacks more stealth themed.
Maybe make it turn your basic combo into more powerful attacks with new animations sorta like Enshroud on RPR ( or bring back Sneak Attack in its stead ).

Buffing the Trick Attack % buff for the NIN on a personal level tho should also make it easier to balance too since you're working with a flat % buff.
I also kinda want Shadowfang back too altho we're still very busy in our Trick Attack window and can't always fit all of it inside it.

I miss both Shadowfang and Dancing Edge as combo actions tho, it was more fun than 123 imo it made it feel more busy.
But yeah some of this like the Cloak of Shadows suggestion would require a rework.
I still kinda want Trick Attack to feel a bit more impactful to the NIN themselves tho.
We're the tricky and sneaky ones.

[Shurrikhan]

This is why I've suggested before to give Trick Attack a higher damage buff to the NIN, so keep it at 5% or so for the party but make it higher for the NIN personally.

Thematically, I'd like that.

I actually do like Trick Attack and I don't want it to go away, my personal preference tho would be to redesign it sorta like Cloak of Shadows or whatever it's called in WoW where you basically enter '' sneaky mode '' and can do more powerful attacks more stealth themed.

Cloak of Shadows was just a magic damage immunity CD. Shadow Dance, then?

There were some suggestions going back as far as ARR to use a Blindside mechanic. Essentially, when an enemy isn't aware of your presence, such as by having broken line of sight against them (and Suiton's pillar of water, suggested to persist for a brief time, would break line of sight), your attacks are upgraded to more powerful versions (and perhaps gain a further effect, such as Trick Attack).

At the time (and still now, to some degree, though less so what with Sneak Attack being ancient history), I was a fan of both that idea and Jump being a single skill that takes you skyward and makes you briefly immune to most forms of damage before coming down via any of various Dive actions based on your GCDs.
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For now, in my opinion, the most lackluster NIN element is Huton, oddly enough. Its application just feels like clunk, the only redeeming quality of which is that it allows for (the least interesting possible use of) a further combo finisher (maintenance of a flat Haste buff). I'd be totally fine with either the Attack Speed being trait-ed and Huton's Ninjutsu itself being turned into something else or it actually needing to be recast roughly once per minute (70s max duration again) and would much rather Armor Crush (or any rebrand of Finisher #2) do something more interesting (and then add back Shadowfang atop that).

[Kolsykol]

For now, in my opinion, the most lackluster NIN element is Huton, oddly enough. Its application just feels like clunk, the only redeeming quality of which is that it allows for (the least interesting possible use of) a further combo finisher (maintenance of a flat Haste buff). I'd be totally fine with either the Attack Speed being trait-ed and Huton's Ninjutsu itself being turned into something else or it actually needing to be recast roughly once per minute (70s max duration again) and would much rather Armor Crush (or any rebrand of Finisher #2) do something more interesting (and then add back Shadowfang atop that).

Yeah especially with GL becoming a passive it feels a bit like it doesn't belong in the way the game plays anymore.
They could bring Shadowfang back as a combo and make Huton a passive.
It's kinda strange to me that Huraijin didn't replace Armor Crush to begin with, why does crushing someones armor refresh my Huton lol?
If not replace it with Shadowfang they could bring back Dancing Edge and make it buff Aeolian Edge or something so you're swapping between the two.

But regardless of what they do, Huton only makes for irritation in that often times tanks will insta pull in duty finder and welp your opener is messed up and you've just wasted a Ninjutsu in lower lvl content and even so in higher level content using Huraijin honestly just feels like an annoyance it's not as exciting as just leading in with your Mudras.
And keeping it up with Armor Crush isn't rly all that fun.
At least Shadowfang taking its place it'd feel a little more interesting than just '' guess imma do my lower dmg combo now to refresh Huton ''.
The damage difference isn't even big which makes it feel even more pointless.

[Shurrikhan]

Yeah especially with GL becoming a passive it feels a bit like it doesn't belong in the way the game plays anymore.
They could bring Shadowfang back as a combo and make Huton a passive.

I'd be fine with that. But, again, there are also other things we could do with Armor Crush / finishers besides just "DoT" or "More Direct Damage / Filler".

It's kinda strange to me that Huraijin didn't replace Armor Crush to begin with, why does crushing someones armor refresh my Huton lol?

On that note, they needed only change AC from "refreshing" to "granting" GL, move that from a "Combo Bonus" to "Additional Effect", and raise its potency floor and voila, you've got all the QoL of having Huraijin without needing to waste a button on it.

If not replace it with Shadowfang they could bring back Dancing Edge and make it buff Aeolian Edge or something so you're swapping between the two.

Honestly, I'm not at all a fan of rigid combo alternation, especially if you can't manipulate the timing in order to cause one to get in more of the buffed attacks (and fewer of the buffing attacks) under damage bonus windows.

I don't much like it in Leaden Fist, and that at least has Perfect Balance, a not-quite synced Demolish, and other manipulables to try to manage some actual complexity from what would otherwise just be convolution.

But regardless of what they do, Huton only makes for irritation in that often times tanks will insta pull in duty finder and welp your opener is messed up and you've just wasted a Ninjutsu.
And keeping it up with Armor Crush isn't rly all that fun.
At least Shadowfang taking its place it'd feel a little more interesting than just '' guess imma do my lower dmg combo now to refresh Huton ''.
The damage difference isn't even big which makes it feel even more pointless.

The saddest part is just that, even with Dancing Blade, Shadow Fang, and the (anti-synergy of) Duality making Armor Crush feel more vital, I preferred Huton being just a Ninjutsu than an ever-maintainable mechanic. At least, back then, if you got greedy at the wrong time, you would need to replace it, and the damage loss from Armor Crush was proportionately larger, so it more or less worked. But now? It's no more interesting than Storm's Eye, all while depending on a weird, clunky vulnerability.

:: Final note: I'm not a fan of the Hide mudra resets, regardless. I wish that, if they must insist on leaving Huton a cast, they'd just had Huton not trigger its cooldown if used outside of combat or within 3 seconds of entering combat (as a tank pulling a trial boss will put you into combat anyways), had Huton duration not drain outside of combat, and/or had one enter an instance with Huton already fully charged (a la Addersgall). And/or, again, just get rid of Armor Crush so there's much little point in a pre-combat Huton. Any combination of those solutions would be simpler and cleaner. (Of course, I'd also want adjustments to just about any mechanic that obliges more than a 5-second pull timer, so....)

tl;dr: In general, I kind of despise any buff that you'd want to keep 100% uptime on unless it's damn hard to do so and doing so would cause you to interact with more factors of complexity than, by outweighing other options, it'd remove. Since HW, Huton has been one such 100% uptime buff with little if any net gain to complexity. It was still basically fine to me, though, until we lost other our finishers (and Duality). Now it has basically no complexity, no real required effort, and has no times in which it'd ever be favorable to let it drop. That just pointlessly shallow, compared to other ways the capacity could be handled if it's supposed to be actively generated. Alternatively, we could just make that passive, have X-X-Ten perform some other effect (e.g., Bunshin, though such that it's only a potency gain over Raiton if used during downtime, before Trick Attack, or when Phantom Kamitachi [the remaining cooldown] can be cast), and change the purpose of Armor Crush to something more interesting.

[Nepthys]

I was a main nin in ARR/Heavensward and a bit in Stormblood but with each expansion it was getting worse and worse. What nin is currently lacking is personal dmg up buff, all other melee jobs have such tool: Reaper-death design, Monk-greased light/stance, Samurai-cant remember skill name but both dmg up and weaponskill recast faster skills, DRG-tether/blood4blood/disembowel.

In ARR/Heavensward nin had "poison dagger" in form of viper/wasp poisons that increased personal dmg and give separete skills stun (viper) and silence (wasp) skills unlocked. Devs killed the skill becouse it was increasing mudra skill dmg too but by looking on how complex and punishing nin work is, you need to remember skill rotation along with mudra rotation in between those, no 1press skill execution like ALL others class have (besides dnc dances) they should give that skill back. Trick Attack from nin in current 5% form compared to 10% is underpowered compared to other jobs with dmg up buffs (reaper/monk) or crip up (drg litany), and since those jobs are easier to use its better to bring those other easier jobs that do more dmg compared to nins dmg-pilled up work

They should seriously give up the bunny already in mudras and in its place give at least a fuma shukiren if we mess it up, its lower dmg than raiton but at least its not 0dmg skill. But by looking on how other classes work they should rework nin from scratch, get rid of mudra system and input 1button skills with a split chakra/ninki system. We use weaponskills and gather chakra, chakra is used on skills like Raiton/katon/doton/sution in single or aoe form. Using chakra skills would incrase ninki bar and from that we can use it on brava/frog/clones. Kinda like reaper system is working. Not only it would be easier but it would also provide constant dmg without penalty of high latency or muscle mudra error.

[Satarn]

What nin is currently lacking is personal dmg up buff, all other melee jobs have such tool: Reaper-death design, Monk-greased light/stance, Samurai-cant remember skill name but both dmg up and weaponskill recast faster skills, DRG-tether/blood4blood/disembowel.

There is no mathematical difference between having a full uptime damage buff or just higher baseline potencies. The only good reason to give NIN something like that would be to give it another combo or some other decent maintenance mechanic, but it has nothing to do with NIN's state of being underpowered.

Also BfB(actually Lance Charge now) and tether on DRG aren't full uptime, they're burst buffs and Greased Lightning hasn't been a damage buff since mid-SHB - it's a passive gcd reduction trait now. As far as attack speed buffs go, NIN already has full uptime Huton.

Trick Attack from nin in current 5% form compared to 10% is underpowered compared to other jobs with dmg up buffs (reaper/monk) or crip up (drg litany), and since those jobs are easier to use its better to bring those other easier jobs that do more dmg compared to nins dmg-pilled up work

TA has been nerfed with it's shift from 10% for 10 seconds into 5% for 15 seconds, however it still remains the strongest raid burst buff in the game. All the other raid burst buffs have twice the recast and in many cases lower % increase as well. Crit rate from Litany has a lower value per percent than a flat out all-damage increase of TA.

Regardless, the reason NIN is underpowered isn't specifically because TA is too weak, but because NIN's total contribution from TA and their personal output isn't high enough. Balance doesn't care where the rDPS comes from, only how much.

But by looking on how other classes work they should rework nin from scratch

No. All of the noes. NIN plays fine for the most part, it could use some tweaks and improvements, but definitely not ones meant to make it more like other jobs. The only justification for homogenization is balance and there is nothing in NIN's playstyle that makes it weak mechanically - it's literally just numerical undertunning. If you want the playstyle of another job, then play that other job.